Deuteronomy 14: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Moses tells Israel not to use mourning customs like cutting themselves or shaving their foreheads, because they belong to God as a holy people. He then lists which land animals, water creatures, and birds may be eaten and which may not, forbids eating an animal that died on its own, and forbids boiling a young goat in its mother's milk. The chapter closes with rules for the yearly tenth of the harvest: it is to be eaten before the LORD at the place he chooses, or sold for money and spent there if the trip is too long, and every third year the tenth is stored in the towns for the Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows.

Claim by Claim

1. 14:1
   • You are children of the LORD your God.
   • You shall not cut yourselves.
   • You shall not shave a bald patch on the front of your head for the dead.
2. 14:2
   • You are a people holy to the LORD your God.
   • The LORD has chosen you to be his own treasured people.
   • The LORD chose you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth.
3. 14:3
   • You shall not eat anything detestable.
4. 14:4
   • These are the animals you may eat.
   • The ox may be eaten.
   • The sheep may be eaten.
   • The goat may be eaten.
5. 14:5
   • The deer may be eaten.
   • The gazelle may be eaten.
   • The roe deer may be eaten.
   • The wild goat may be eaten.
   • The ibex may be eaten.
   • The wild ox or antelope may be eaten.
   • The mountain sheep may be eaten.
6. 14:6
   • Any animal that has a hoof divided into two parts and that chews the cud may be eaten.
7. 14:7
   • Of the animals that chew the cud or have a divided hoof, these may not be eaten.
   • The camel may not be eaten.
   • The hare may not be eaten.
   • The rock badger may not be eaten.
   • The camel, the hare, and the rock badger chew the cud.
   • The camel, the hare, and the rock badger do not have a divided hoof.
   • The camel, the hare, and the rock badger are unclean for you.
8. 14:8
   • The pig may not be eaten.
   • The pig has a divided hoof.
   • The pig does not chew the cud.
   • The pig is unclean for you.
   • You shall not eat the flesh of these animals.
   • You shall not touch their carcasses.
9. 14:9
   • Of everything that is in the waters, you may eat whatever has fins and scales.
10. 14:10
    • Whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat.
    • Whatever lacks fins and scales is unclean for you.
11. 14:11
    • You may eat any clean bird.
12. 14:12
    • These birds you shall not eat.
    • The eagle or great vulture may not be eaten.
    • The bearded vulture may not be eaten.
    • The black vulture may not be eaten.
13. 14:13
    • The red kite may not be eaten.
    • The falcon may not be eaten.
    • Every kind of kite may not be eaten.
14. 14:14
    • Every kind of raven may not be eaten.
15. 14:15
    • The ostrich may not be eaten.
    • The night hawk may not be eaten.
    • The seagull may not be eaten.
    • Every kind of hawk may not be eaten.
16. 14:16
    • The little owl may not be eaten.
    • The great owl may not be eaten.
    • The white owl may not be eaten.
17. 14:17
    • The desert owl or pelican may not be eaten.
    • The carrion vulture may not be eaten.
    • The cormorant may not be eaten.
18. 14:18
    • The stork may not be eaten.
    • Every kind of heron may not be eaten.
    • The hoopoe may not be eaten.
    • The bat may not be eaten.
19. 14:19
    • Every winged swarming creature is unclean for you.
    • Winged swarming creatures shall not be eaten.
20. 14:20
    • You may eat any clean flying creature.
21. 14:21
    • You shall not eat any animal that has died of itself.
    • You may give such a carcass to the resident foreigner within your gates so that he may eat it.
    • You may sell such a carcass to a foreigner.
    • You are a people holy to the LORD your God.
    • You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.
22. 14:22
    • You shall surely tithe all the yield of your seed.
    • The tithe is of what the field brings forth year by year.
23. 14:23
    • You shall eat the tithe before the LORD your God.
    • You shall eat it in the place the LORD will choose to make his name dwell there.
    • The tithe includes your grain, your new wine, and your oil.
    • You shall also eat the firstborn of your herds and of your flocks there.
    • The purpose is that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always.
24. 14:24
    • The journey may be too long for you.
    • You may be unable to carry the tithe.
    • The place the LORD your God will choose to set his name there may be too far from you.
    • The LORD your God will bless you.
25. 14:25
    • In that case you shall exchange the tithe for silver.
    • You shall bind up the silver in your hand.
    • You shall go to the place the LORD your God will choose.
26. 14:26
    • You shall spend the silver on whatever your soul desires.
    • You may spend it on cattle.
    • You may spend it on sheep or goats.
    • You may spend it on wine.
    • You may spend it on strong drink.
    • You may spend it on whatever your soul asks for.
    • You shall eat there before the LORD your God.
    • You and your household shall rejoice.
27. 14:27
    • You shall not forsake the Levite who is within your gates.
    • The Levite has no portion or inheritance with you.
28. 14:28
    • At the end of three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce of that year.
    • You shall lay it up within your gates.
29. 14:29
    • The Levite shall come.
    • The Levite has no portion or inheritance with you.
    • The resident foreigner within your gates shall come.
    • The fatherless within your gates shall come.
    • The widow within your gates shall come.
    • They shall eat and be satisfied.
    • The purpose is that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand that you do.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1

Cutting the skin and shaving a patch at the front of the head were common mourning customs among Israel's neighbors, performed at funerals and for the dead generally. The King James "make any baldness between your eyes" refers to shaving the hair above the forehead, not to anything done to the eyes.

14:2

"Holy" here translates a word meaning set apart or dedicated for a particular use, not "morally pure." The King James "peculiar people" uses "peculiar" in its 1611 sense of "belonging personally to someone", the underlying Hebrew word was used of a king's private treasure, as distinct from the property of the state.

14:3

The Hebrew word behind "abominable" or "detestable" marks something as taboo, offensive and off-limits within this system of worship. It is a category label, not a comment on how the food tastes or smells.

14:4

An ox is a big, strong cow. People used oxen to pull carts and plows.

14:5

These are wild game animals, hunted rather than herded. Several of the Hebrew names cannot now be identified with certainty, which is why translations differ so widely: the King James "pygarg" and "chamois" are guesses at animals modern translators render as "ibex" and "mountain sheep."

14:6

"Chewing the cud" describes animals such as cattle, sheep and goats, which bring partly digested food back up from the stomach and chew it a second time. The two tests together (a hoof split all the way through, plus cud-chewing) are things anyone could check by looking at the animal.

14:7

"Unclean" is a ritual category, not a statement about dirt or health: it means the animal is unfit to be eaten or offered, and nothing more. The King James "coney" is the rock badger or hyrax, a small rock-dwelling animal of the region, not a rabbit. Neither it nor the hare actually chews the cud in the biological sense; both work their jaws in a way that looks like it, and the law classifies animals by what an observer can see.

14:8

Pigs were kept and eaten by many of the surrounding peoples, so this ruling separated Israelite eating habits sharply from those of their neighbors. The extra rule about the carcass is not repeated for the other animals in the list.

14:9

The fins-and-scales rule rules out shellfish such as shrimp, crab and oysters, along with squid, eels and smooth-skinned fish like catfish.

14:10

The fins-and-scales test rules out shellfish, squid, eels and fish such as catfish, however common they were in local waters.

14:11

"Clean" means allowed. A clean bird could be eaten; an unclean one could not.

14:12

Almost every bird in this list is a bird of prey or a carrion eater. Many of the Hebrew names are uncertain, and the King James names are seventeenth-century attempts at them: "ossifrage" (literally "bone-breaker") and "gier eagle" are older names for vultures, "glede" for a kite, "cuckow" probably not a cuckoo at all, and "lapwing" is more likely the hoopoe.

14:13

A "glede" and a "kite" are both kinds of hunting bird in older English, close enough in meaning that the King James translators used both without being sure which Hebrew word was which.

14:15

The King James "owl" here is more likely the ostrich, and "cuckow" is its old spelling of cuckoo, though the bird meant is probably a gull or seabird.

14:16

"Swan" is almost certainly wrong here. The Hebrew word belongs with the owls in this part of the list.

14:17

A cormorant is a large black bird that dives underwater to catch fish.

14:18

The King James "lapwing" is the hoopoe, a crested bird that feeds by probing the ground. The bat is listed with the birds because these lists group creatures by how they move and where they live, not by the biological categories we use now.

14:19

The King James "creeping thing that flieth" means winged insects that swarm. A parallel law in Leviticus allows an exception for locusts and similar hopping insects, which were eaten in the region.

14:21

An animal found dead has not been bled, and draining the blood was required in Israelite slaughter, that, rather than spoilage, is the point. The King James uses "stranger" for a foreigner settled among the people, and "alien" for an outsider such as a passing trader; neither was bound by these food rules. "Within thy gates" means "in your towns": a town was defined by its wall and gate. The rule about a young goat and its mother's milk appears three times in the law; what it originally forbade is disputed, and it later became the basis of the Jewish practice of keeping meat and dairy separate.

14:22

A tithe is a tenth. Here it functioned as a yearly religious tax paid in produce rather than money, since most people farmed and coined money did not yet exist.

14:23

"The place he chooses as the home for his name" refers to one central sanctuary, which Deuteronomy never names. To put a name on a place was to claim it as one's own. Unlike offerings handed over to the priests, this tenth is eaten by the household that brought it, as a feast. "Fear" here translates a word closer to awe and reverence than to fright.

14:25

Coined money did not yet exist. Payment was made in weighed pieces of silver, which were tied up in a cloth or pouch for carrying, hence the King James "bind up the money in thine hand."

14:26

"Strong drink" translates a Hebrew word for fermented drink made from something other than grapes, barley, dates or honey. It does not mean distilled spirits, which were unknown then. In 1611 "whatsoever thy soul lusteth after" simply meant "whatever you have a craving for," with no negative sense.

14:27

The Levites were the tribe assigned to service at the sanctuary. When the land was divided among the tribes, they received no territory of their own, so they had no farm income and depended on a share of what others brought.

14:28

This third-year tenth is kept in the local town instead of being carried to the central sanctuary, and is given away rather than eaten by the household that grew it.

14:29

A foreigner, an orphan and a widow all lacked what normally secured a living: inherited land and a male head of household to work and defend it. They appear together throughout Israelite law as the standard list of people with no economic footing.